


Your Face, Like the Sun in My Hands

by viktorstardust



Category: LISA (Video Games)
Genre: 30 Day OTP Challenge, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But also, Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, Drabble Collection, Fluff and Angst, Gender Issues, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, a lot of brad learning how to love and be loved and a lot of terry being a lovesick dork, no flash au, or as many prompts that i feel like doing, trying to keep these all under 1000 words
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 10,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26612194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viktorstardust/pseuds/viktorstardust
Summary: And when the sun weeps, so do I.____________________Bradterry 30 day otp challenge
Relationships: Brad Armstrong/Terry Hintz
Comments: 22
Kudos: 44





	1. Accident Prone

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1 — holding hands

The first time it happens, it’s by accident.

Brad’s mind is working a hundred miles an hour to find her, following empty leads and covering more of post-flash Olathe’s sandy hellscape than he’s ever cared to. It’s always disgusted him, and as a result of his revulsion to the average Olathian man and his habitat, he’s stayed secluded in one spot for more than a decade and doesn’t know a thing about the different trails that bind the wasteland into a series of winding roads, tangled paths.

That’s why Terry is a miracle in disguise. For what he lacks in strength, he makes up for in knowledge. The hints are a map, everywhere he’s been is marked with yellowed scraps of paper and torn out pages of his diary. Terry is a wanderer, and all the places he’s been are points on a map. 

They still don’t exactly know where to look, but it’s a start.

But Brad is bullheaded and steadfast. The only way he knows is forward, so that’s the way he’ll go until you stop him and tell him the road he’s on is a straight shot right off a cliff. 

The first time it happens, Brad’s heading north when Terry knows the only way to the next crossroad town is west. 

Terry reaches out and grabs his hand.

Says, “Wait, dude, I think it’s this way.” And that’s that, all there is to it. A simple redirection from his human map, his second mate. The touch, though, for a moment it makes him feel as if he’s stranded, and they are all alone under the desert sun. Helpless and confused for that brief moment where Terry’s fingers wrap around his hand. And he is so small, his fingers are so small Brad thinks their hands could fit perfectly in each other like soulmates.

Then it’s over. They have to keep moving. West, this time.

When it happens again, it happens on the other hand. For obvious reasons.

Where the rest of mankind has learned to hide emotion like it’s the very key to their undoing, Terry wears his emotions on his sleeve, holds them out for you to see on a silver platter. Looks like a deer in headlights even now, just as much as he had when those masked men held knives to his throat and made Brad choose. They’re by the fire while Olan threads a needle and wire through the bleeding remains of his arm. Despite seeing this kind of carnage before, Brad doesn’t want to watch. He’s trying hard enough to ignore the pain and the thought of losing a piece of him, because he’ll gladly lose every piece to get her back home and back to safety. He’s never been a fan of self-pity anyway.

He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t painful, though. The sting of the alcohol to clean his wound, the claw of his phantom limb struggling for purchase. It’s, frankly, the worst physical pain he’s ever experienced. 

Terry’s on the side of his remaining arm, and Brad doesn’t have to look at him to know he looks a lot sicker, a lot paler than Brad does right now. There are no words to speak between them. Perhaps if Brad were a better man, a man without a tied tongue and a heavy heart, he’d tell Terry not to feel bad about the choice. Because when Brad was put under a spotlight and forced to choose between his arm and his friend, he realized that he could no longer imagine a world without Terry in it. 

In that moment, the fear of losing him had been worse than the fear of losing a limb. 

He had two arms to spare, anyway. 

Brad’s done a good job at concealing the pain up until now (it might as well be a talent of his at this point, concealing pain), but the needle breaks his skin in a bad way, or maybe Olan’s fingers are brushing up too close to the open wound for comfort, but he winces and groans before he has the forethought to stifle it back.

Like he’s catching him from falling, Terry reaches for his hand again and Brad instinctively squeezes down on it for a grip against the torment, like a bite block, a stress ball. He only then realizes he must be crushing the bones of Terry’s fingers. But when he loosens his grip, Terry still holds on. 

Maybe he needs this more than Brad. 

Brad still needs it more than Terry will ever know.

The next time, it is not an accident.

In some bastardization of what romantic nights used to be, they are under the stars, shitfaced to take the edge off another day of frantic searching. The others coaxed a few bottles of whiskey into him and he feels warm like he hasn’t in so long. And they’re stupid, the kind of drunk that makes you smile for dumb reasons, the way someone’s looking at you, the way humanity is doomed and there’s nothing to do about it. That kind of smile. Hopeless, stupid, drunk smiles under a starry night.

“Man, I think you’re so cool, y’know,” Terry slurs his words and looks over at Brad with a drunken smile. On their backs together, the rest of the gang’s passed out leaving only the two of them for conversation. Funny how things work out. “You’re like, the dopest guy I know, I mean that.”

Even in drunkenness, even while shitfaced, Brad is a one-word-man, maybe two words if he’s feeling chatty. Something about learning not to speak unless it mattered because a lot of his problems were caused by opening his stupid mouth. “Thanks.”

“No, really…I love you, man.” 

And Terry takes his hand. He’s drunk, so he probably doesn’t mean it like that, but hand-in-hand, a guy has to wonder.

And wonder Brad does. His whiskey dreams that night are of white picket fences and all the words he’s too afraid to say to Terry vomiting out of him until he has no more things to say to him, because Terry’s always been better with talking. 

When Brad wakes up, they are still holding hands. Like they’re scared of the monsters in the closet.

Letting go of that hand is a knife in his side.


	2. Come Monday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 2 — cuddling somewhere  
> domestic/no flash au

Some mornings, he thinks he must have woken up only to wind up in another dream. With vague ideas of the bed he’s in and the person he’s sleeping next to, both being too good to be real. One of these days, he thinks he’s going to open his eyes in an apartment lying on a bed built for one with the smell of rotted food and whiskey, all too normal again. It’s the simple yet pervasive thought of not deserving what he has. That somewhere a mistake has been made and he will wake up back where he started. The good dream that cannot last.

Like every morning, however, he opens his eyes before the sunrise and he’s in a king-sized bed with his face against the pillow and somehow all four limbs of the man sleeping soundly next to him wrapped around his body, the point of Terry’s nose nuzzled into his chest. 

He only then realizes how tense the fear of waking up alone has made him and relaxes back into Terry’s arms. 

He’s beat his alarm again. There’s still an hour left in his night, but getting to sleep the first time is enough of a chore. His daily routine starts at six, when he’ll wake up Dustin, then Buddy for school, do the best he can with breakfast until Terry gets up and saves it, makes it edible. He doesn’t know why he still tries to cook, maybe he doesn’t feel useful enough unless he’s making an attempt. At least pancakes are easy to not screw up. 

Then he’ll get the kids on the bus when they need to be on the bus, and his schedule is mostly free until it’s time to get the kids and open up shop for after-school training at his dojo. Give or take the odds and ends he needs to do before then. Errands and quality time. Terry doesn’t work — he, in fact, mentioned that to him before they even moved in together. He hates working. Confined to someone else’s schedule. Brad can’t argue with that, because he was fortunate enough to be able to be his own boss instead of ringing up groceries or flipping burgers. College was not an option. 

Everything in between is just life. He’s most afraid of simple moments, because those are his favorite kind, much more preferred than something grand and unexpected. No, he loves it when despite everything, he lives clean and happy when everything from the start was set up to have him dead before twenty. That’s where the fear lies, that everything is too good for him. Too simple and perfect to be real.

Terry tells him he thinks too much and the reason they’re good together is because Terry talks too much. One doing the talking, the other doing the thinking. What Terry doesn’t know is that Brad’s absolutely clueless. Always has been. All these thoughts of fear and doubt mean nothing, because no matter how many times he tells himself this is not what he deserves, it will always be what he has. He will always wake up in the morning to a sunrise and the smell of Terry’s skin, his kids sleeping in the rooms down the hall being raised better than he was at the very least. There will always be someone next to him, warmth on all the parts he touches, soft black hair in his face from a night of tossing and turning. 

Persistent pain and hungover morning-afters did not follow him here. And what did follow him is not healed, but tended to with much more than he was promised as a boy. Much more than nothing.

Terry feels the signs of the morning in Brad, the way he stiffens and moves slightly in a way that makes it clear he’s going to get out of bed soon. He holds on tighter, all but pulling Brad back into their burrow of sheets and covers with his arms looped lazily around his back.

Brad feels himself relax and be still, the muscles in his face unclenching and a familiar softness take its place. He brushes hair away from Terry’s mouth before he starts chewing on it in his sleep. He suspects he might not be completely knocked out, though. He was pretty quick to hold him closer when he thought Brad was going to leave. 

“You awake?” Brad mumbles with his cheek pressed against the pillow, asking him if he’s still up like kids at a sleepover. It’d feel nice to just go back to sleep with him now, but there’s time for that later. 

“Mm…” Is Terry’s response, his eyes still stubbornly closed as if to will himself back to sleep. Brad’s captivated with how much he loves that face, with how they’ve gotten this familiar but looking at him never changes. It’s still always the same feeling in his heart. Growing up, he thought love and marriage were just formalities. Like it is with animals, just more vain. Getting married to someone for the appearance of getting married, without ever really actually loving them. He never saw love in his parents, so maybe they were bad actors. That was not love. He knows that now.

He stirs again when it’s closer to the time the kids wake up, and Terry, more lucid now, just pulls him back down again. “Nuh, not yet…”

Brad smiles a little. “I have to wake the kids up.”

“In a minute.” Terry’s eyes open to a tired squint. “Cuddle with me for a little, man.”

He sighs softly, but it’s not out of inconvenience. It’s just hard to deny such a convincing argument. Brad entangles himself back into Terry’s arm, holding him close until his alarm finally catches up to him. 


	3. Player Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 3 — gaming/watching a movie  
> domestic/no flash au

“Seriously?”

“Yes…?”

Terry sighs and thrusts the controller into Brad’s hands for him to try. “We’re the same age, you never, like, played with your friends?”

Brad looks at the thing like it’s an alien. Even starts holding it the wrong way at one point. Longways, like he’s never seen a controller before in his life. “I  _ watched  _ my friends play.” He squints to look at the buttons and it’s like he’s married to a senior citizen right now. There’s a big, dumb smile on Terry’s face just watching him forget over and over which button makes Mario jump and which button pauses the game. They’re literally labelled, this is amazing. He should get it on video, go viral, make millions.

“Dude, this is really cute.”

The tips of Brad’s ears go a little red with embarrassment. Even cuter. “I’m too old for this.”

Terry laughs and leans against him to watch. He’s got stomping on enemies down, at least. “Again, we’re the same age. I was, like, nine when this came out.” He takes the controller back from Brad before he blows through all his lives and kills Mario for good, effortlessly breezing through it with pure muscle memory. “We couldn’t afford a NES when it came out, though. I think I bought it with my own money when I was like, twenty. The hospital had one, though. That’s where I became a pro-gamer.” He rambles, finishes the level for him, then hands it back over to get him to try again. For his own amusement.

“My friend Rick had one,” Brad mumbles, so deep in focus he leans forward on the couch for a better view. “He just used it to show off to us, though.”

“Be glad it’s me and not Buddy watching you, she’d probably try to get put back up for adoption if she saw the way you play.”

Brad smiles and chuckles a little. “That’s not funny.”

Terry loves making Brad smile. It might as well be a hobby for him. Just to throw him off his ‘game’ if you can even call it that, he kisses him on the cheek and almost immediately hears the familiar sound of a failed level when he sends Mario right into a pit almost as soon as lips touch skin. Terry grins and gives him another. 

“Doesn’t count.”

Terry laughs and throws himself into Brad’s lap. “God, I love you, man.” 


	4. Pretty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 4 — on a date (sort of)  
> domestic/no flash au

There’s not much Terry can do other than be there. His words do matter, but talk is cheap when talking about this. 

Too deep of a fear to be consoled, too deep of a longing to be pushed beneath the surface any more than it already has been. Given the choice, he’d keep it beneath the surface forever, hold it down under the water, a mercy killing of a part of himself that he both loves and fears.

His staring match with the mirror in their room feels like self-inflicted torture, because Brad doesn’t  _ have  _ to keep looking at himself until his self image warps that reflection into something much worse. He could easily have just accepted that it’s the way he looks and it’s not a bad thing. In fact, it might be the most rewarding look in the mirror he’s ever had. Until he let his thoughts about it degrade.

He mostly feels selfish for wasting their date night having a fight with himself about whether or not he looks good in a skirt and makeup.

Trivial bullshit.

He should just quit, go get dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, wipe this paint off his face.

He stands to go do that and Terry is already one step ahead of him, blocking his path and making him sit back down. It must be painfully clear how much he really wants this, then.

“You look so beautiful, man,” Terry sighs because this is the third time he’s had to be reassuring, bear the burden of Brad’s insecurities so they can just go to dinner already. It never feels like a burden coming from Terry’s lips. Brad, however, will always find a way to feel like a burden.

“It’s stupid.” He grunts and holds his face in his hands. Careful not to smear the lipstick and eyeshadow, he must not really think it’s stupid if he’s going through such efforts to not ruin it. Passing off his feelings as being foolish, though, usually helps him push them back down. Not today, apparently. He’s already staring what his damned heart wants right in the face. “God, it looks so stupid.”

Terry hears the break in his voice and fretfully comes to his rescue like he’s just watched his loved one get shot. “It doesn’t!” He winds his fingers under Brad’s beard to hold his face in a way that makes Brad feel very foolish, very adored. Terry has that way about him, makes him feel loved like few ever could. Their small family, a tiny apartment, things that make him feel necessary. The way he wants to be loved by him for a very, very long time. Terry presents him with a question. “Does it feel good? Wearing that?”

Brad doesn’t know how to lie to him anymore. “...Yes.” 

Because it is horrifying. But more than that, it’s validating.

Terry throws his hands up as if to tell him the answer is obvious. “Then there ya go!” He laughs and makes Brad look at him by getting into his field of sight, finally breaking the staring contest with the mirror. “You really do look really pretty. I meant that.” His tone softens in the way it only does when Brad needs to be brought back down to reality. 

“You don’t want to be seen with me like this.” He looks away, the warmth of a genuine compliment turning cold as he’s imagining all the glances he’ll get, all the whispers and the quiet laughs. Fear grips his heart remembering the schoolyard taunts, his father’s drunken assumptions, the way the people on TV joke about this exact scenario, the man in a dress. Terry can’t shield him from everything. He will know when it’s happening, and his mind will run wild with suspicion when it’s not. 

“Why, because other guys are gonna wanna steal my hot date?” Terry jokes, unable to resist. He continues, just a bit more serious again. “Man, I don’t care about what anyone but me thinks about me. You deserve a night out. Who knows when your sister’s gonna feel like watching the kids for us again?”

“Lisa loves the kids.”

“In short doses.” Terry kisses him on the cheek. “If anyone’s gonna be embarrassing to be seen with, let it be me. I’m wearing my rainbow bowtie.” He chuckles, it’s infectious. 

Terry’s doing everything he can. Brad sees that. But there’s years leading up to this, years before they met, and none of it good. He remembers being twenty something when he tried on a dress for the first time. He was more muscular then, fit and strong from perfecting his fighting style so he could start teaching it. The state of his body makes no difference. It still feels right, but there’s still mental work that can’t be rushed into one night.

“Or, if you don’t wanna go out, I can order something,” Terry offers. “We could watch a movie?”

That’s a good start.

Takeout food. Horror movie from the eighties on VHS. He wears the skirt, the makeup, all the way until they fall asleep together on the couch.

And it feels right.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> brad armstrong gender non conforming king
> 
> this is really personal to me pls be nice


	5. Burning building

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 5 — kissing  
> canon, 2nd person (terry) pov, poem sort of but not really

You spent your life begging for kisses from men that only wanted you for one night. You wanted something more than late nights on a stranger’s balcony with smoke in your lungs and bitten-down nails wondering if you’d get a call tomorrow night.

Those secret Kansas bars, the way you let your hair grow long in pure eighties vanity just so maybe you’d be mistaken for someone else. Collecting roommates like bottle caps with their phony friendships and your inability to force yourself to hold down a job for the money to stay with them long enough to force connection because it could never come so easily for you.

Your lips cracked and dried in the winter, stained with artificial cherry in the summer, and all you’d ever asked for was someone to look you in the eyes when they spoke to you, kiss the red off your lips, smear your chapstick with their own. It seems people like you were never made for walks along the beach or malted milkshakes with two straws. 

So that is not what you got. The world burnt up and died before you got the chance. Thrust into a torrid desert of hate and misery, not so different from life before, only now you saw the death of the romantic comedies that were only ever hypothetical to you. At least, you would not watch your lover die as so many had from the white flash’s cruel hands. 

You met a man out there. A man built from scar tissue, gritted teeth from years of biting back the words he was too afraid to say. He was the moon, strong and silent, cold. You wanted to be the sun. 

He saved you. He would always save you. Your pride was never strong to begin with so you let him protect you. You came into this world without someone to keep rabid dogs from your heels. You got stronger for him so he wouldn’t have to stick his neck out just to keep a worthless ally safe. You loved him enough to find the fire burning inside of you and become his phoenix. 

His lips, seldom speaking, were lips you wanted to die on. His heart was made with pain in mind so you broke down every wall it had built up and nested yourself right next to it. The front row seat where you watch him kill his old friends while holding hands with new ones. You are nesting in a barn fire. You made your home in a casket.

Each time you kiss Brad is another nail in that coffin. 

How soundly you’ll sleep someday. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is kinda flopping so bradterry fans pls make some noise <3


	6. Fear in the hearts of men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 6 — wearing each others clothes (sort of. im bad at this)

Brad hates to see him shiver like he does. Olathe is by no means a place with frigid winters and morning frost, but the temperature can drop fast in the bellies of caves or under the rare Olathian moon. He watches Terry, shaking like a scared dog every time he feels the cold on his bare arms. Not yet familiar enough to make demands and tell him to wear better clothes for travelling as they do, but much too uncomfortably invested in his safety after watching his back to keep him out of danger so much he knows all the notches on his spine, all the spots on his shirt. Sometimes he’s seized with a human kindness too intimate, too close, a kindness that begs him to pull Terry to his side, share with him his warmth, never let him leave. 

That would probably kill him, with the state his mind is in. Always in. Too intimate, too close, too much of a distraction.

Besides; He knows the cold is only half the reason. 

Fear can make a man shake twice as hard. 

Brad’s not about to high-road him. No one is immune to fear, any man that claims he is is stuck in the social vanity of a pre-modern time. It’s not about who you are, it’s about what haunts you. The world they live in, you’d be hard pressed to find a man without baggage bigger than the hearts they carry it in. He’s scared every day. Fear is the default, there are no other options in his rotten, damaged mind. Of people that don’t exist anymore, ghosts taking up the space where he operates. He’s much too old to be afraid of the dark, but then, no one else sees what he sees in the darkness when he closes his weary eyes at night. 

Point being, demons are everywhere. They fight them every day. Metaphorically and very, very literally.

The mutant they find in a basement, in one of many bizarrely preserved suburban homes, is vile. A member of a certain class of mutants so uncomfortable to witness it makes one’s stomach sink with dread. All mutants cause discomfort in some way, creatures made of vaguely human parts, skin and flesh but so decidedly inhuman. Some just stick to your mind as you try to sleep, their twisted, horrified faces as you put them out of their misery hanging around until something worse clouds your thoughts.

Long after it’s over, Brad can see Terry out of the corner of his eye as they walk, holding himself with his head low like he’s in trouble, looking at no one. Talking to no one. Shaking so violently it makes Brad’s heart hurt. There’s that feeling again. A sentimental attachment to someone he should’ve never dragged into this in the first place.

Brad concedes to a pit stop at a nearby bar because even the roughest of them look at least a bit shaken and in need of a drink. Terry doesn’t go in with them. Gives a shaky smile when they ask and insists he’s gonna keep his eye on the truck in case anyone tries to steal it despite the fact that the bar has no door and they can all see the truck just fine from inside. They decide to let him have this and go inside without him. 

Terry’s chewing off his nails until his shaking fingers are bitten down to skin when they’re ready to leave. It aches. It aches knowing that Terry will change, with every horrific moment that bites at Brad’s heels, Terry will watch it all and he will slowly become used to it. Brad knows he is guilty for this. The silent truth of the matter that they are not on a pleasure cruise. This is not a road trip, this is no evening walk. They are following Brad until he finds her. And he will do anything to find her.

Terry will be seeing mutants in his nightmares until he stops dreaming. 

He feels him shake even still after they set up camp for the night. It’s awful, but at least the touch of Terry’s skin in their weak shelter every night does a good job of keeping him locked into reality with another person. The hallucinations don’t bother him that night.

They face away from each other in the night. Sometimes Brad wakes up to find them both in opposite positions. That is, facing each other and with their mouths so close to touching that he can feel Terry’s breath on his lips. He, of course, refuses to address it. 

“Brad?” Terry asks when he’s apparently sick of pretending to be asleep.

“Mm.” 

Terry’s silent again long enough for Brad to wonder if he didn’t hear him. His voice sounds dry and weak the next time he speaks, shaking along with the rest of him.

“You don’t,” Brad can hear him swallow around his own words, damp and afraid. “You don’t... _ use  _ anymore?” He puts emphasis on the word ‘use’ like he’s biting his tongue for some old secret, like speaking the word itself will send him spiralling into relapse. “Right?”

That issue is beyond either of them now. He didn’t stop for either of them, he stopped for her. It’s practically out of his hands. How Terry knows, then, is unclear. Maybe Brad wears it on his face, in his eyes. 

“No.”

With their backs pressed against each other, Brad feels Terry release whatever tension he was holding. That’s that, he guesses.

It’s not, though, is it? 

The shame cuts through him, sharp and unforgiving. And in place of the words he can’t form, the apologies he can’t give, the next time he feels Terry shiver against him he gives himself the luxury of believing it’s because of the cold. He sits up, takes off his poncho, and drapes it over Terry’s trembling shoulders just as fast as he can pretend he did nothing at all and rolls back over without a word.

Terry’s back to normal in the morning. All that lingers is his scent on Brad’s clothes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk how much longer ill be doing these but thanks for reading , dont b afraid to let me know what you think !!


	7. Full Moon Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 7 — Halloween
> 
> the original prompt was “cosplay” but since the season is here and i didnt have any inspiration for the cosplay theme, i changed it 
> 
> domestic/no flash au

Terry’s definitely one of  _ those  _ people. Halloween buff, gets all wild-eyed and antsy the moment September rolls around. A loyal patron of all the pop-up Halloween stores in town, the kind of people that put those gel window clings on the windows and wears his oranges and blacks long after the season’s over.

Only problem with it is he can’t  _ actually  _ participate when Halloween rolls around. Not on the actual day which kills him because his step-daughter is still trick-or-treating age and he’s been longing for the excuse to go again. 

But where there are people handing out candy from their own houses, there are house pets. Dogs that people assume all the kids want to pet, and y’know, good for them if they get to pet a dog and everything, but he’s not interested in taking the risk. Personal reasons.

He could always go with them and just let Buddy go up to the door while he stays in the driveway, but no one’s ever really tried to help him get over that little fear of his so it’s just as pervasive and irrational as it was when he was eight years old. 

Tragic.

He tries not to wear the mild jealousy he holds on his sleeve as he and Brad help Buddy get suited up for the night, going as a vampire this year (she made it absolutely clear in the store that she didn’t want any skimping on the fake blood). Terry’s dressed up with nowhere to go, this year he’s as good a Jason Voorhees as he can be on their budget, sadly unmasked since he has no real reason to be. It’s still exciting, getting to be a part of their holiday this year, as a family. Feels a little less mopey when he’s not gonna be eating candy alone until he passes out — just until Brad and the kids come back. 

They finish doing the last of Buddy’s corpse makeup and let her run off somewhere to get some of that boundless, eight-year old energy out before the big night. Terry sighs and leans his head on Brad’s shoulder.

“Man, I wish I could go with you guys,” he says with a sad pout in his voice. “I need therapy or something. Something to fix this.”

Brad gives his hand a sympathetic squeeze. He doesn’t have to say anything, Terry thinks he can read his mind at this point, and it’s all kind words and loving reassurances. The big guy doesn’t say much, and that’s alright. Terry’s got enough words for the both of them.

“Still not too late to get you a real costume, y’know,” he smirks and jabs Brad in the side with his elbow. Brad is, in an extremely Brad-like move, wearing one of those cliche, plain black ‘This Is My Halloween Costume’ shirts. Leave it to Brad to bully himself into thinking an actual costume would be silly on him. Terry will force him into the holiday spirit someday. 

“Sure.” Brad mumbles with a smirk in his voice, still holding Terry’s hand like he’s worried letting go will make Terry even sadder. He’s not truly even sad, though. A little bummed out as ever that his fear of dogs is keeping him from experiencing his favorite holiday, but he can’t be sad surrounded by Halloween decorations and how cute the kids look in their costumes. Dustin’s a cowboy this year — he doesn’t like being scary despite being at that age where it’s becoming uncool to not be scary on Halloween. Terry respects the hell out of it, frankly. 

As they wait, Terry’s hand absentmindedly slips under the loose sleeve of his jacket, touching the long-faded but still recognizable place of his scar, one of two that beast left on him when he was a kid. He thinks it’s stupid to hold onto fear for this long, at least a fear like this, but it’s not like it’s easy for him to just let go. Being a scrawny kid seeing a stray dog stare you down with the intent to bite isn’t a memory that just goes away. It got him on his forearm and somewhere on his leg. Doctor said he was lucky not to get it on the face, too, because dog attacks usually happen on the face. Like that was gonna make him feel any better.

Brad must notice him staring at nothing and touching his arm like a weirdo, because he squeezes his hand and Terry’s back to reality. They made a little language for themselves with their hands and facial expressions. Brad’s looking at him, asking him without saying anything if he’s alright. Terry melts, pulling his hand away from his scar and leaning in to give him a kiss to tell him he’ll be alright. It’s a real big help to not have to do it alone anymore.

“Stop kissing!” Suddenly, Buddy comes up from behind and hits them both on the back with her candy bucket. “Let’s go!”

Terry glances at the clock. Exactly five in the afternoon, not a second to be wasted. Dusty emerges from his room when Buddy runs past and bangs on his door. 

“Lookin’ sharp, partner.” Terry smiles and throws up a finger gun at him. Dusty grins and flushes all the way to his ears, glancing down but still beaming with that awkward teenage pride.

“Th-thank you, T-T-Terry.” 

The two of them head for the door, and before Terry can understand what’s going on, Brad’s still at his side as Dustin and Buddy start to head out.

“Be safe.” Brad reminds them with a healthy amount of fatherly concern. “Hold her hand, and call me if you need to, okay?”

Dusty nods. “I w-will. Bye-“ he’s out the door before he can finish, Buddy all but yanking her giant of a brother out the door. 

Terry’s still lost. “You’re not going with them?” The way Brad worries about those kids, you’d think he’d never let them leave his side. 

“Nah...Dustin’s old enough to take her on his own.” He suddenly can’t meet Terry’s gaze, always the shy one. “I thought I’d stay in with you tonight.”

Touched, Terry grins and rubs his eyes when they start to water. He can’t remember a Halloween where he wasn’t at least vaguely gloomy about his situation. No way he’s gonna be like that tonight, with his best friend in the whole world helping him finish off the bag of Halloween candy he bought to tide him over for the night. 

“God, you’re great, man.” Terry’s practically hugging him so tight it’s lifting him off the floor into Brad’s arms. 

There’s really nowhere he’d rather be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> or just a way for me to overexplain my theory on why terry doesnt like dogs


	8. Hypothetic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 8 — late night talks*

“...How old were you?”

Terry asks, his eyes large and wet like the way a deer stares you down when you’re about to mow it over with your car. Even though Brad’s the one that feels like he’s under the wheels, like all the bones in his body are laid out bare and ready to be crushed. 

“I don’t remember. In my twenties, maybe.”

Even nailed to his own cross, even after deciding he doesn’t have much time left with Terry and the others and even with the resolve to finally tell Terry all the reasons why he can’t hold him, can’t whisper the sweet nothings he deserves or lift him off his feet like in the movies of old, Brad still can’t bring himself to tell Terry the full truth. He knows the exact time it happened, exactly how old he was, what he was doing when he found out.

He was twenty-four, it was half past five, he was eating dinner at Rick’s house after work when he found out. When he got a call from the man that killed him, telling him that he’d finally killed her, too. 

Terry doesn’t need to know the finer details. It seems excessive to tell him about the sobbing, the vomit, how he wanted to kill himself right then and there and almost did, nearly overdosed on Oxycontin with the express belief that he was going to follow right behind her, up to the fictional world above that was still ingrained in his heart and his fantasies from a worthless, Christian childhood. 

No, he doesn’t need to know any of it.

“I’m so sorry,” Terry chokes out. Brad can tell that, for once, he has stunned Terry into having nothing to say, that there are no words of encouragement in his vocabulary that could express how much that should never have happened. 

He’s been hearing “sorry” his whole life. Never for the things he actually desired apologies for, all the tragedies in a life full of them. When Terry says it though, it doesn’t feel like a loveless taunt. There is love for him in every word he says. In a lot of ways, that’s worse.

What a sight they are to the heavens, broken men lying belly-up on the ground beneath an endless, starless sky. Olathe constantly looks sick and dying, even its night sky is a barren, washed-out dark blue with the faint light of its moon being the only thing that lets him see all the sorrow on Terry’s face. Brad has never woken up with the need to tell somebody about all the death he holds inside of him, but he can feel himself inching closer to the inevitable. Tomorrow is the last thing on their checklist, wood for the boat. He will meet her there, somewhere past that violent sea, and he will do what he can before what he’s done to his body becomes irreversible. 

He is not afraid of it anymore. All there is, is the end. All he wants is to see her safe. 

He feels like he owes Terry some answers before then. For someone who has made such an effort, been with him until the end. 

Terry seems to feel the same way when he rolls over and pulls him into a hug against his body, still strange but not unwelcome anymore. Terry likes to hug. He likes to touch and hold like Brad is so dear to him his hands burn whenever they can’t feel him there. It hurts to imagine Terry without anyone to hold, but he knows they can’t do this forever. There is no ‘forever’. Loving him comes with an expiration date, they are all finite and Brad has done nothing but waste time for him. He doesn’t know a kind of love that comes without that pain.

Terry’s holding him long after he needs to be. “Jeez…” it’s only when he hears Terry sniffle when he realizes he’s been crying. It makes sense; Terry’s heart is full and aching with all the love Brad is too afraid to accept. “I wish we knew each other before everything, you know.” Terry breaks away and props himself up on his side so Brad can see him while he talks, replacing the dim Olathian moon as the brightest and most beautiful thing in the sky tonight. Brad doesn’t mind that Terry has nothing more to say about her. It’s too much to talk about beyond mere mentioning. Even now, her name is in his head and he sees her all around them like vengeful angels in the sky. 

“Yeah.” Brad finally responds, and he means it. He’s tired of feeling dead. He wants to know a world where they aren’t so expendable. Useless cogs in a machine that’s destined to break. 

“It’s so silly, I imagine it all the time.”

“What do you see when you imagine it?”

Terry touches the side of his head so tenderly, it’s hard to believe he’s never taken care of something before. No kids, no siblings. Somehow, Terry is this gentle from taking care of only himself. Brad feels like he could fall asleep in the heat of his hand against his skin. “I see you and me, man...white picket fence, all that junk.” He smiles and wipes tears from his eyes. Eyes so tired, like he’s been running for days just to keep up with Brad as he crashes and burns all over Olathe. “We have a house, flowers in the yard, a garden. I used to garden, y’know.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Nothing big ‘cause I could only grow stuff big enough to fit in apartment windows, but I dabbled. We’d have, like, a real one, though. I always wanted to grow strawberries or something. Strawterries, if you will.”

Leave it to Terry to bring a smile to his face when everything is going wrong. “Okay. We’d have a garden.” 

“Yeah… Do you like flowers? I noticed you keep one with you.”

The flower. Old and dead in his pocket, the most important possession he still has. Tears slowly fill his vision, remembering the day they found it and all the things she said to him in the following days after her escape, what she must think of him. Sweet and bitter memories alike, attacking his heart in the same way.

“Yes.”

“Oh, man,” Terry reaches up to thumb a stray tear from Brad’s cheeks, worrying over him like he’s dying. “I’m sorry, I-I didn’t-...”

“It’s okay. Keep telling me about it.”

Terry’s crying again too. He guesses he has a way of bringing others down with him. “We’d have each other… We’d sleep on a bed instead of the tent, and…” 

His voice trembles and Brad feels absolutely guilty for every hitch, every stifled sob. It’s all such a simple fantasy, but it’s one they’ll never obtain. 

“Please tell me you love me,” he leaves the fantasy behind for what they have now. How badly it must sting to come back to this. “Please...fuck, I’m sorry…”

“I love you.”

He only says it once, but thinks it a thousand more times before sleep washes over them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *so its harder than i thought to stick with the 30 day otp challenge prompt list for these two bc its probably meant for younger characters and bradterry is two old men so im just gonna pick and choose which ones i do , ill mostly try to stay with the original prompt list but if i cant im just gonna swap them out for ones from other lists
> 
> also sorry about how tonally different from each other these all are, bradterry makes me either extremely happy or extremely sad
> 
> dont be afraid to let me know what you think


	9. Whiskey Lullaby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 9 — hanging out with friends (barely)

They manage to stumble out of another day unhurt and in good spirits with hours of heavy traveling under the belt for another day. Olan convinces them to break open a bottle of whiskey they’ve been saving for emergencies, Terry convinces them to pitch a campfire and spend the night not in their tents, but instead in a tight circle around the fire. 

There’s the sound of barely competent guitar playing from some other camp nearby as they pass around the whiskey until their faces grow hot. Until Brad stops cautiously glaring in the direction of the music, no longer expecting an ambush or at least no longer sober enough to care. 

“I used to play guitar, y’know,” Olan says on his fourth swig. He can hold it better than the lot of them, but even he’s starting to slur his words and turn flush under the brim of his hat. 

“Were ya any good?” Terry, however, is already a grinning mess, clutching the bottle close to him like it’s his own. 

“Better than that guy,” he chuckles, tilting his head back and nodding lazily along to the clumsy plucking. “You boys know how to sing?”

The reply is instant. Resounding ‘no’s from a group of men with voices worse than the sound of cats in heat. Olan chuckles, Mr. perfect with the voice of a country music singer. “Come on now, can’t be  _ that  _ bad…” 

He starts off humming, then picks up into a deep, slow drawl of a song that shuts even Nern up for once. 

_ Down in the valley, the valley so low, _

_ Hang yer head over, hear the wind blow. _

The others don’t notice it when Terry clings to Brad’s arm, nuzzling the soft hair on him. They never do, or they don’t care. More interesting things out here than a man hugging another man so tight you’d think he came into this world just to find his other half.

_ Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow, _

_ Hang yer head over, hear the wind blow. _

The fire paints Terry in light and shadow, that tired smile, those sunny brown eyes. Brad looks away. Terry puts a hand on his chin and turns Brad back towards him. Bold enough to all but demand to see that weathered, war-torn face.

_ Writing this letter, containing three lines, _

_ Answer my question, will you be mine? _

His heart swells with warm music and the long look that Terry refuses to break, running his fingers over the lines and cracks in Brad’s face, mapping out a damaged road. 

_ Will you be mine, dear, will you be mine?  _

_ Answer my question, will you be mine? _

“You ever dance?” Terry asks him, already hammered enough for Brad to keep the bottle out of his hands the next few pass-arounds. It’s a bad feeling to get addicted to.

“No. Never.” He says honestly. He’s a martial artist and the two skills are adjacent enough for him to be almost competent on his feet but he still thinks him dancing is a sight no one should ever have to see. 

“I used to. Not to stuff like this, though.” He snickers to himself, momentarily lost in a memory. “Disco’s my game.”

Brad smirks. “No way you were old enough when disco was a thing.” They’re both somewhere in their forties, they both missed that boat by a solid decade. 

“Heh. Guilty. I still like it though.” Terry hugs his arm a little tighter and hoists himself up so his mouth is uncomfortably close to Brad’s ear. Brad’s drunk by now, too, and he loves the jolts that run down his spine when he feels those lips close enough to touch. 

_ Write me a letter, send it by mail, _

_ Send it in care of the Birmingham jail, _

“We should dance. Dance with me.”

Brad’s drunken heart beats a little quicker. He imagines what they would’ve been like had they ever gotten the chance. More like he imagines Terry dancing that big heart of his out like he sees him do it when they fight. Brad can’t promise him a dance, but he can promise him that he’ll be thinking about it long after he sobers up.

_ Birmingham jail, dear, Birmingham jail, _

_ Send it in care of the Birmingham jail. _

“You wouldn’t wanna see that.”

“Come on, man, indulge me.” 

Before he can respond, Terry’s up on his feet in a too-fast motion for a drunk man, taking Brad by the hands and hauling him as best he can until Brad gets worried about him pulling a muscle and helps him the rest of the way. The others are so busy, either resting or listening to Olan’s deep, warm crooning to care. 

Terry guides Brad’s hands, one for his shoulder, one for his waist, and Brad bears most of his lazy, inebriated weight in a clumsy slow-dance he wasn’t prepared to have. Maybe it’s the whiskey in his brain, maybe it’s the pleasant sound of a slow, western serenade, but he doesn’t even feel like objecting anymore. Things aren’t good. He knows that when day breaks, this memory and any of the pleasant warmth that comes with it will be just that, a memory. They’re still following her trail, still urgently scouring the wasteland for a sign like starving animals in the desert. But Terry’s making him sway, his friends are humming and carrying on in their own way, modern-day cowboys finding a way to amuse themselves in a post-amusement world, and at least for that moment, the warmth of that memory is alive and well.

Terry leans his head on Brad’s chest as he sways them along to the gentle rhythm. “I don’t even know if we’re doin’ this right…” 

Brad doesn’t either. All these tender moments, he never expected to have. He missed out on first kisses, prom dates, everything that’s supposed to make a man a man. Certainly never expected to see them after the world ended, never expected anything to be able to reach this dead man’s heart and make it beat like it never had. Not in this way. 

_ Roses love sunshine, violets love dew, _

_ Angels in Heaven know I love you. _

It might as well be this; this stupid, irrational, downright beautiful love of theirs. 

_ Know I love you, dear, know I love you, _

_ Angels in Heaven Know I love you. _

Maybe it’s just the whiskey talking. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry im so loose with these prompts hdhdgs i just like bradterry this is one big excuse to write about them a lot
> 
> the song featured is down in the valley, a folk song


	10. Show Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 10 — shameless flirting
> 
> this ones just self indulgent im so sorry

“Hey, you got a minute?” 

Frankly, his answer should be ‘no’. Time’s not really abundant in this. Making the time for Terry whether he has the time or not has become kind of a habit, though, so he hangs back as the rest of the group pulls ahead of them. 

“Mm.” Brad grunts, wiping some excess sweat off his brow. He sorely needed a good work out after being stagnant for the amount of time it takes to raise a child, and probably a few years before that. More than a few. The young man he used to be would probably kill him if he knew training and bench-pressing away the excess weight from every bag of chips he ate wasn’t really on his schedule anymore. He’s always been on the heavier side, but there was more effort into translating that weight into muscle back when he had kids that looked up to him as a teacher, when his own fitness was kind of a big deal if he was meant to teach a room of middle-schoolers how to defend themselves.

He’s been building that back, bit by little bit from all the fighting his way out of and into tough situations he’s been doing lately, but the guys in the muscle cave almost made him miss the little bit of pride he got from being fit. Still on the heavier side, but he’s always been that way. 

“Um,” Terry rubs the back of his neck and turns his head away, a very un-Terry thing to do if all his usual unabashed enthusiasm is to be believed. He’s got Brad curious now. “That was pretty cool in there, huh?”

“I guess.” Brad shrugs. He’s been to more than one gym in his lifetime, he’s seen plenty of workout-obsessed guys hopped up on their own sweat fumes and body oil before. It’s nothing interesting. The most interesting part was probably the fact that he, in all his washed-up, middle aged glory, was able to deadlift a car. 

“Yeah, totally…” Terry talks like he’s preoccupied, bigger things on his mind. “You’re pretty strong, y’know.”

No need to fuel an ego that’s basically nonexistent, but a compliment’s a compliment. Brad’s ashamed to admit how good it feels. How the only thing anyone wants to tell him out here is that he looks fat and tired, so Terry telling him that is probably more than he remembers how to handle. “Thanks.”

“I mean, how big would your muscles have to be to lift that much, heh...Like, how big are  _ yours _ , right?”

Okay. Now Brad sees what he’s doing. 

“Terry…”

When he looks at him, Terry’s face is beet red and sweatier than his own after that workout. He looks truly shaken over this conversation.

He doesn’t want it to go to his own head, but…

“Y-yeah, what’s up?” Brad’s reminded of the lonely single mothers picking up their kids from his class, flirting pointlessly with a guy so messed up and out of it he probably wouldn’t even know where to begin with what they wanted from him. Brad’s never dated anybody, his life has been on a constant loop of ‘it’s just not the right time’. It has never been the right time. But he’s not  _ that  _ dense. He knows when someone’s flirting with him. It just doesn’t happen a lot. 

Brad smirks a little. It was uncomfortable for him back then when he was fit and had hair, it’s downright amusing now that he’s pushing fifty and not hiding it well. Plus, he really doesn’t hate it coming from Terry. Quite the opposite. Terry has a special way of making things a little easier, making his pills go down a little smoother, making him feel a little bit like the only guy in the world even during the worst few days of his life. 

Everyone needs a mental break at some point. 

He’s curious himself to see how bad atrophy’s taken its toll on him, so he pulls back his poncho and lets Terry have the look he’s been very not subtly asking for. He flexes for him.

“Haha, oh my god…” Terry says in a flustered, tittering way. Brad wonders if anyone’s told Terry yet about how bad he is at playing it cool. “You’re, like, the whole package, huh?” 

“...No. Not really.”

Terry shoves him playfully. “Shut up, man, you’re great…” He rubs his hands together nervously like it’s hard to keep them to himself. “Can I…” without waiting for Brad’s answer, he touches his bicep and starts giggling again. Brad guesses he knows Terry a little better now; knows that he’s either got really low standards or just a thing for shows of strength. Both, probably. “Oh, man...I bet you could bench press me.”

“Jesus Christ, get a fuckin’ room!” The moment’s interrupted by a sharp elbow shoving Terry and Brad aside. It’s Fly, who must’ve gotten stuck behind them on the way out of the cave while the others managed to go on. He passes them now, sneering from under his costume. 

When he passes, Terry bursts out in laughter, and it’s Brad’s turn to be embarrassed.

“Oh my god, I hate that guy,” Terry says between chuckles. The moment’s thoroughly over, but definitely not ruined.

He goes to sleep feeling a little better that night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this ones so silly i just like the idea of uplifting brad armstrong and terry being a ridiculous flirt with a thing for brad’s muscles
> 
> also im aware this is a serious game and silly romantic moments like this probably didnt happen bc brad’s fucked up and forever sad just let me have this


	11. Family Values

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 11 — sharing memories (sort of)
> 
> domestic/no flash au
> 
> another different prompt from a different prompt list (if ur looking to do the otp challenge yourself dont take these from me please)

“Do you have any baby pictures?” Terry asks him one night as they lie in bed together, attempting sleep in each other’s arms after a long day.

“Of the kids?”

“Nah, man,” Terry smiles and holds Brad’s face in his hands just to get a better look at him in the dark. “Of you.” 

Brad’s smile is genuine because Terry knows by now when it’s fake. “Why?” 

“I dunno, isn’t that like, a thing I’m supposed to ask?” He chuckles. Brad wants to become lost in that laugh, in that grin. “To embarrass you or something?”

Terry knows all the things he knows about serious adult relationships from sitcoms, from too much TV. And that’s okay because that’s the way Brad learned it, too. They are each other’s first love, each other’s first real shot at fulfillment through another person. 

“I don’t have any on me, no.” If there were photo albums full of pictures of him, they were his mother’s and he wasn’t allowed anywhere near where they would’ve been kept. Any chances of getting it now are slim to say the least. “You wouldn’t want to see them, anyway.”

“Liar, I so would.” 

Brad would too if he’s being honest. Remnants of his very brief tastes of a happy childhood would be so treasured if only they existed. He thinks his mother might have taken some photos, memorialized those times in her own way before she passed. Makes him wonder if he’d even recognize the boy in those hypothetical snapshots, or if everything that happened after made him unrecognizable by the time it was too late. 

The thought makes his stomach tighten in that all too familiar sense of dread. Only thing to do for it is change the subject.

“What about you? You have any?”

Terry laughs. “God, no. I mean, I was a cute kid, don’t get me wrong, but we weren’t really a photo-taking family.”

He can’t say his was any different. Even before she died, there was a tense way about her. Walking on eggshells to avoid an argument, stress-smoking on the front steps, her tired pleas to not do this in front of her baby. To not fight in front of him. There weren’t many photogenic moments in all of that. 

Terry continues when Brad’s too lost in thought to say anything more. As usual. “My parents had some okay days before the split I guess? But after I got sick, man. Mom and me didn’t do  _ anything _ . All she did was sit on the couch and drink. We didn’t even celebrate stuff anymore.” He makes himself a little smaller to fit a little better against Brad’s chest in bed. Terry does that too often for comfort, making himself seem smaller. “At least when dad was still around we’d have fuckin’...McDonalds for Thanksgiving.”

“We didn’t celebrate holidays either.” They lace their fingers together for comfort, wedding rings clinking together lightly every time they move. “I think the first Christmas Lisa ever had was a long time after I got her away from him.” 

“You’re a good brother.” 

It’s so sudden that he’s not prepared for how cathartic it is to be told that. “Thank you.” 

“And a good husband. And father.” Terry’s voice is soft and distant like he’s fighting to stay awake. “I’m glad they have you. Glad  _ I  _ have you, dude.”

It amazes him. How two people, both with enough childhood baggage to talk a therapist to death could turn out so different and still so good for each other. He’s lucky. 

“Same to you.”

“Can I say something?” 

Brad would listen to anything Terry has to say, any day of the week, any hour of the night. “Yeah.”

“Fuck our parents, man. We’re gonna do so much better than them.”

Terry will never know just how much he needed to hear that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i will put my stupid backstory headcanons in everything i write dont cross me
> 
> have i never mentioned that in my no flash au lisa is alive and marty is in prison until he dies because..they are 
> 
> also i hope like.. no one thinks im trying to rewrite brad’s character to make him perfect bc in canon he’s definitely not a perfect father or perfect at all and hes still not in my domestic au, just that this au is supposed to be a fix-it of sorts to help me cope and also brad’s probably getting a TON of therapy 
> 
> anyway writing insecurities aside, thank you for reading, feel free to comment if you enjoyed <3


	12. Be here now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 12 — making out
> 
> rated PG-13 for old man kissing

Terry says it like he’s afraid. Like it took him a long time to work up the courage to say it. Brad wonders how long he’s been wanting for it, twiddling his thumbs with the question rolling around in his head but just kept thinking it, never speaking it into life.

“Can you kiss me?”

There’s a lot of things Brad has never done.

A lot of things he’s missed out on because of his own fear. Dissonance with the person he wants to be and the person the cruel sands of time have changed him into. 

He’s kissed before. He’s  _ only  _ kissed before. Clumsy teenaged ‘experiments’ between him and his best friend (former best friend now, apparently) and nothing beyond it but still. He’ll hold onto the one thing he has done that everyone else has already done, because there’s not much else he can hold onto in that regard. 

Call him a very late bloomer or just call him a loser, it hardly matters. 

Brad stupidly checks to make sure they’re alone in a tent barely made for two. Terry sinks a little and Brad thinks he might’ve offended him, broken his spirits by suggesting this will never be anything more than private necking in the dark. That’s the last thing he wants, for Terry to feel like Brad’s afraid of what they’ve become. More than friends, more than confidants, the most Brad has ever known another person. 

He feels like he should be the one asking Terry that question. If he’s been good enough to him to deserve a kiss from Terry at all. It hurts to know that Terry will always say yes. 

“It’s cool if you don’t want t-”

A walking cliche, Brad cuts him off mid-sentence to show, without any room for doubt, that he wants this. Terry is relief in his darkest days, a break from every withdrawal headache, every night spent trapped awake thinking about all the things he’s done, all the men he’s killed, watched their life leave through their eyes, about what she’s doing now and if she even wants to see him after all he’s done to fuck things up. It doesn’t end, but Terry is respite incarnate, a living reminder to lay himself down at night and be here now, in the present with him because god knows Brad loves living in the past. 

This is the first time they’ve kissed. He wonders how many others have shared the same luxury of being able to kiss him. If Terry’s wondering the same. There is softness in a rough world and it’s all right here, on these pale pink lips. 

Terry kisses in an odd, desperate way, a man starved. Brad can see it in everything about him, how much Terry wants to be held and feel treasured by another human being. There’s a sad truth in his kiss, the truth that Brad isn’t a man who cherishes and adores. Brad’s a man who kills and fights and cries and hides himself away with his booze so he doesn’t have to know the fear of being known by another person.

He doesn’t want to be that man anymore. That man is what brought him here in the first place. He doesn’t want to hide anymore. He is going to get out of this place, find his daughter, and fix this. It isn’t an option anymore.

Terry grabs onto his poncho with his hands in fists, lifting himself up off the ground to sink closer into the kiss. Brad doesn’t remember what the kiss of another man tastes like. It’s been too long. But Terry tastes like he’s not from here, as if he were picked up and put in post-apocalypse Olathe just a day ago. A relic of the past, like bubblegum and soda. Sweet. Too sweet to be real. Brad wants to ask him how  _ he  _ tastes. Like the smoky burn of old whiskey, if he’s guessing. 

Terry definitely knows what he’s doing better than Brad. For once, what he lacks doesn’t make him insecure. He just wants this moment. This moment without his thoughts getting in the way, putting up the usual wall. Terry deserves to know that he wants this. 

He owes his best friend that much.

  
  



End file.
